Union’s Black Civil War Vets Get Their Due

Thousands of spectators sat through 18 speeches under a blazing sun Saturday at the unveiling of a $2.6-million bronze statue dedicated to black veterans of the Civil War.

The 11-foot statue is one of the few monuments in the nation marking the military achievements of black soldiers.

“They fought not only for the preservation of the Union, but for their freedom from slavery,” said Army Lt. Gen. Joe Ballard, the keynote speaker. “Perhaps more than any other men, these soldiers knew the value of freedom.”

Since the end of the Civil War, black veterans have fought a long battle for public recognition. According to Ballard, 10% of the Union’s soldiers were black and one-third of them died in service.

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After the Confederacy surrendered, though, the North in large part erased those soldiers’ contributions from the public memory. Black veterans were not allowed to march in the Union’s victory parade in Washington. In the 1880s, Congress rebuffed efforts by black veteran George Washington Williams to construct a memorial near Howard University. Williams’ wish finally was realized Saturday.

Within sight of Howard, the memorial lies in Washington’s Shaw neighborhood, a predominantly black area named after white Col. Robert Gould Shaw, leader of Massachusetts’s 54th Volunteer Infantry, a black regiment that fell at Fort Wagner, S.C.

Saturday’s unveiling did not include the full memorial. Etchings of the names of the 208,943 black soldiers and sailors and their white commanders--part of architect Ed Hamilton’s design--are not expected to be completed until Veterans Day.